What Secondary Services Can I Get with My Metal Materials?

When you’re in the market for metal material the first thing you need to find is a supplier who carries — or is able to source — the type of metal you need. Next, it’s about quantity. Some vendors only deal in larger quantities, making it difficult to source smaller volumes, like five or fifteen pounds. Once you’ve found the material type and the quantity, the next consideration is whether you need sheet or coil and what lengths and widths of materials you require.

Sometimes, you have to purchase the material from one supplier and ship it to another vendor for metal cutting services like blanking, slitting, and edge conditioning. But other times, you may find a supplier who sells material and offers in-house secondary services. 

Secondary Services Offered at Mead Metals

Here at Mead Metals, we offer a handful of secondary services to our customers. Primarily, these secondary services include: 

1. Cutting
2. Slitting
3. Edge Conditioning

Take a moment to learn about each one below. 

What is Metal Cutting?

Metal cutting is a service where metal is cut according to length. Metal coils typically include hundreds, or even thousands, of feet of materials, but many customers need metal in much smaller lengths. Standard industry lengths range from 24-144”. Metal cutting, also referred to as leveling, blanking, or cutting to length, ensures customers have access to the materials in the lengths their process requires. 

What is Metal Slitting?

Metal slitting is a service where metal coils are cut according to width. As a coil is fed through the slitter, a set of blades will slit the material to pre-determined widths. Then, each piece of material becomes it’s own coil.

This process is ideal for customers who require a specific width of material for their application. Some applications require extremely consistent product that maintains a tight tolerance. With the use of slitting machines, we’re able to achieve tight tolerances and provide precise material to our customers. 

What is Metal Edge Conditioning? 

Edge conditioning is a service that removes sharp edges and imperfections along the edge of a piece of metal material. When metal is cut or slit, uneven, burred edges can result. Edge conditioning produces a radiused edge that results in a safer, more uniform product. And a uniform product is much easier to fabricate.

At Mead Metals, our primary secondary services are cutting, slitting, and edge conditioning. But that’s not all we provide our customers. If your material requires a different type of machining or special treatment before you’re able to fabricate it, please get in touch with us. We have numerous vendor partners who provide additional machining services that we don’t personally offer. We’re more than happy to coordinate those additional services along with your metal order. 

We have the ability to process a wide range of flat rolled products for you, regardless of the size of your order. We are always focused on helping our customers and providing them with on-time delivery. In fact, we meet our quoted lead times 99.98% of the time. 

Make a quick quote request today and let us show you how our custom solutions can save you time and money.